The husband of Mrs. Damer, who appeared in a new suit twice a-day,
and whose wardrobe sold for L15,000, blew his brains out at a
coffee-house. Beau Fielding, Beau Nash, and Beau Brummell all expiated
their contemptible vanity in obscure old age of want and misery. As the
world is full of folly, the history of a fool is as good a mirror to
hold up to it as another; but in the case of Beau Nash the only question
is, whether he or his subjects were the greater fools. So now for a
picture of as much folly as could well be crammed into that hot basin in
the Somersetshire hills, of which more anon.
It is a hard thing for a man not to have had a father--harder still,
like poor Savage, to have one whom he cannot get hold of; but perhaps it
is hardest of all, when you have a father, and that parent a very
respectable man, to be told that you never had one. This was Nash's
case, and his father was so little known, and so seldom mentioned, that
the splendid Beau was thought almost to have dropped from the clouds,
ready dressed and powdered. He dropped in reality from anything but a
heavenly place--the shipping town of Swansea: so that Wales can claim
the honour of having produced the finest beau of his age.
Pages:
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261